


froggy came a courtin'

by orphan_account



Category: Political RPF, Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: Cannibalism, Demon Deals, Disembowelment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 16:02:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6476728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don’t want a contested convention. They want their candidate to sail in and get to the podium and stand there in a hail of balloons, red or blue depending on Cleveland or Philadelphia and smile and wave. They don't want stances softened to pick up Middle America. They don’t want possible lawsuits dragging the whole damn thing down while the other guy waltzes away with Nate Silver’s number in his back pocket. They just want to get it over with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	froggy came a courtin'

No one wants a contested convention.

That’s the damn truth of it. _No one_ wants it. Even the screaming little revolutionaries. Even the people who write satire for a living, who grub onto every bit of discourse to line their pockets. They don’t want a contested convention. They want their candidate to sail in and get to the podium and stand there in a hail of balloons, red or blue depending on Cleveland or Philadelphia and smile and wave. They don't want stances softened to pick up Middle America. They don’t want possible lawsuits dragging the whole damn thing down while the other guy waltzes away with Nate Silver’s number in his back pocket. They just want to get it over with.

He’s ever been a man of the people, you know?

The frogskin face spattered not red or black but sort of brown, sort of orange where there’s a smear. Greedy chowing-down. A belch, a stumpy fingernail inserted into the back of the mouth to pick out some remnant. He’d made him stay and watch the whole meal. Revenge, or to show him what he’d done, but there are sixty-five thousand deer hunters in Vermont. That’s ten percent of the damn state. There’s a dense black bear population and a considerable number of self-sustaining commune-dwellers with their guns and their crossbows inviting him to Revolutionary Barbecues. Viscera ain’t gonna scare him. Cruz seems to gel to this, for he stops taking obscene time over bursting internal organs in his bloated fist and glares up with his beetleblack eyes. “The dead’s just for the wish. Just for the asking.”

“So what makes it come true?”

Grin and grimace simultaneous. “Compromise.”

“You know what they say, I haven’t changed my mind in thirty-five years.”

There’s some grudging admiration there. Sticking to your guns. Cruz who grinds the country to shrieking halts likes that. A rarity in this day and age. “You already killed a man. Why make that meaningless?”

“Excuse me. You killed him.” This was true. Cruz hadn’t cracked his neck, or slit his throat. He tore open his belly and very carefully and with utmost delicacy unspooled his intestines. He’d felt kind of bad about the choking and the wailing, but the kid hadn’t really needed the twelve bucks an hour you got as an entry-level intern. He’d had a trust fund and, thus, no student loans. One of those poor little rich babies tugging the silver spoon out the mouth and throwing it at Daddy. Fuck you, Daddy, I’m a commie now, I’ll drive my Beemer through the nice neighborhoods and not come to canvass in the places where there ain't no Whole Foods, I’ll come to summers on the Vineyard with your third wife but I’m a commie now, definitely.

“The dead soul is for the asking,” Cruz says, as if he hadn’t heard. “The flesh is for my belly. If I'm honest, that's fringe benefits. The living soul is for the guarantee. You want the guarantee? I need your soul.”

“Take it.”

Cruz’s surprise is unfeigned. “Just like that?”

“I’m starting a revolution, here. A revolution is always beyond one man. You know that.”

Cruz scowling. Probably piecing together something about American individualism and rugged determination. He couldn’t give two flying shits. Cruz can tell, and he won’t poke. He draws his talon across the air. Something blows out of him, like a breath he wasn’t aware of letting out. He goes home and takes a shower. He’ll throw out the pants, where the blood got the hems, but he’s owned this sweater since 1974 and it’s like an old friend. It ain’t going in the trash without a few tries with seltzer and cold water.

He gets his delegates just fine.

He loses in November.


End file.
